The Shelbyville Central Golden Eaglettes let a key district matchup slip out of their hands on Friday night in the 64-59 home loss to Warren County.
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The Shelbyville Central Golden Eaglettes fell to the Warren County Lady Pioneers on Friday night, 64-59, in a result that sent shockwaves around District 9-AAAA.
The Lady Pioneers came into Shelbyville with a 3-14 (0-1) record, but managed to shock the hosts as they held Eaglettes star Paige Blackburn, who was coming off a 25-point performance at Coffee County, to seven points.
Lanaya Young and Lily Brown stepped up in her place with 23 and 19 points, respectively, but the rest of the team only managed to score 10 points combined as the Eaglettes failed to avoid an 0-2 start in district play.
The Eaglettes were unable to get enough defensive stops, as Warren County’s Bri Taylor, Lex Verge, and Trinity Reynolds torched Shelbyville Central’s for 21, 16, and 15 points, respectively.
Warren County came out unintimidated against the seemingly superior squad to start the game, going on a 9-2 run to open the first quarter en route to a 15-10 lead after the first eight minutes. They limited Blackburn to a single three point shot in the first frame, and it ended up being her only made three pointer of the night.
In the second quarter, the Eaglettes seemed to find more of a rhythm on the offensive end, specifically in Lanaya Young. Young put in eight of her game-high 23 points in that second period, helping send the game into halftime tied at 27.
The home crowd expected the Eaglettes to come out and continue their strong second quarter into the second half, and to start the third quarter it looked like that may happen. Central went on a 5-0 mini-run out of the locker room, but the Lady Pioneers responded with a quick 7-0 run themselves to go back up 34-31.
From that point on, the teams started to trade baskets, but as the third quarter wound down, Warren County held a 40-38 lead with about 90 seconds to go. They closed the period with back-to-back three-pointers. The second one came from Brenlee Griffith on her second of two made baskets on the night, and she barely beat the buzzer to send the Eaglettes into the fourth quarter trailing by eight, 46-38.
To open the final frame, Shelbyville’s defensive intensity increased dramatically. A Sammie Brown three was quickly answered by a Lady Pioneer mini-run, but the Eaglettes managed to respond with one of their own to cut the lead to two, 57-55.
Unfortunately for Shelbyville Central, they were not able to make timely shots in the final two-and-a-half minutes, and would even miss a potential game-tying layup with 12.6 seconds to go.
Warren County held on, 64-59, to improve to 4-14 (1-2) with a trip to Coffee County scheduled for Tuesday, weather permitting.
Shelbyville Central fell to 11-6 (0-2) and are currently scheduled to travel to Lincoln County on Tuesday, weather permitting, airing LIVE on WLIJ 98.7 and AM 1580 starting at 5:45 p.m.
